When marketing a company, multiple marketing efforts and platforms are moving simultaneously. Keeping track of everything and ensuring the needed work is done on time without a central marketing calendar. You would need a full-time employee to keep track of the marketing initiatives and work that needs to be done for them. Effective marketing is not done haphazardly; it is carefully planned out for months to ensure every detail is considered.
Here are three reasons to create and use a marketing calendar.
1. To be able to plan.
Preparing campaigns, content, images, videos, infographics takes time. It requires the coordination of multiple people, companies, and organizations. It is not something that can frequently be thrown together last minute. A marketing calendar allows you to see the launch dates for each marketing campaign and a breakdown of the work deadlines leading up to the launch. For example, suppose you are launching a new commercial.
In that case, you’ll need a breakdown of deadlines and production for the brainstorming, scriptwriting, video production, editing, and finalizing leading up to the launch of the commercial. You’ll also need a breakdown of the work required to get the commercial shown on the channels, platforms, and time frames you need to be seen by your target audience.
2. To be able to see everything at once.
A marketing calendar allows you to see all your marketing efforts at once. This will enable you to coordinate commercials, social media, print advertising, and anything else you are planning with the launch of a new product, service, event, or holiday. Coordinating everything together will allow you to ensure there is consistency across all channels. It will strengthen your brand and eliminate potential mismatched information.
For example, if you are preparing for a massive sale, you need to ensure that all channels correctly provide the same dates and information about the sale and time. Launching a commercial on the last day of the sale is ineffective and will irritate customers who don’t see it in time to take advantage of the opportunity. Mistakes like that make your company and brand look bad.
3. To be able to coordinate work production.
As mentioned, a lot of work goes into creating marketing material. The writers can get the information they need about the proposed commercial as soon as it is approved, and the video production crew can get a copy of the script as soon as it is ready. A central marketing calendar is critical for remote work teams because it simplifies remote work production. When you have a single platform that all participants can log in to and see where production is, the work progress can be updated and shared in real-time. You won’t need to waste time with meetings, phone calls, or emails updating everyone on what everyone else is doing because they can all see the same work calendar.
A marketing calendar is a critical tool for businesses that utilize marketing for promotion. Even if you are a small business and your entire marketing department, setting up the tools you need now while still small will allow you to scale your business quickly. Waiting until you are expanded will create frustration and missteps as you try to grow while also going backward and setting up those essential tools. Prepare for the business you want to build, not the one you have today. If you’re already quickly growing and feeling overwhelmed by marketing efforts, take a breathe and get started today in the right direction. While it is best to start early, it is never too late to do what’s best for your business.
